Good Old Games Press Conference Report: Relaunching Tomorrow, Adding Baldur’s Gate

The Good Old Games press conference is ongoing, and it has been revealed that the digital download service will be relaunching tomorrow, DRM-free and under the same management, with the addition of Baldur’s Gate to its catalog. No real explanation was offered for the downtime other than “technical issues”, though they do admit “it was a mistake, a technical mistake”. Here are my notes:

GOG is being relaunched 1 pm GMT tomorrow with a graphical overhaul, making it easier for new users to register, with no email confirmation, and only a username, e-mail, password and birthday needed. See the details on some of the additions below.

The “great surprise” for their upcoming two-year anniversary is the addition of Baldur’s Gate and its Tales of the Sword Coast expansion pack for $9.99.

New features include a mini-catologue divided by gaming genres, a community overview at the bottom of the page with GOGmixes, ratings and discussions, in a quick overview for purchasers. The games catalogue has been overhauled to make searching for games and genres easier.

GOGMixes are the “biggest” new feature: they’re a list of titles with recommendations and short descriptions from other users. This is primarily to give an easy overview for users who are interested in certain genres (they use adventures and tactical games as examples), but who don’t have a lot of knowledge in that genre.

The product overview has been changed with some new features. Each game has a “what’s cool about it” overview (written by GOG’s testers, not marketing blurbs), the old goodies were discussed but nothing new there. A Facebook like button has been added, as well as a download time estimation. The community pages have been overhauled to be more accessible as well.

Over 150 games fully compatible with Windows 7. Other games work on most configurations but have bugs on some configurations. The games that are fully compatible have Windows 7 flags, others do not.

The presentation was presented by a bunch of guys in monk robes talking in semi-indecipherable Polish accents. The whole thing was somewhat amateurish and disappointing, offering little excuses for the closure, only citing “technical issues”.